Jones left 'embarrassed' by the 'worst performance' of his two Luton spells

An embarrassed Luton boss Nathan Jones declared today’s 4-0 defeat at Cardiff City as the ‘worst performance' of his two spells in charge of the club.

The Hatters never recovered from a terrible opening 10 minutes when they fell 2-0 down, Sean Morrison and Mark Harris both scoring.

Worse was to follow after the break, with Kieffer Moore and Sheyi Ojo on target to condemn Town to their biggest away defeat in the league since the 7-0 reverse at Brentford almost a year ago.

Prior to the game, the visitors looked to have a real chance of coming away with a positive result, with home manager Neil Harris under pressure from the Bluebirds fans following a disappointing start to the season, with just one victory recorded on home soil.

However, they easily doubled that record and might have won by further, as Jones said: “I’m a bit embarrassed if I’m honest, because of the level of performance, regardless of what we wanted to do and how we wanted to start, to be two down after nine minutes and the goals we gave away were a real, real embarrassment.

“We've got to be better than that as there was a little bit of a theme, exactly the same away at Millwall, it was identical.

"When you go 2-0 down after nine minutes, it’s very difficult to chase a game in the Championship.

“If you’re Bournemouth or Norwich maybe you can do that, with 60, 70, 80, 90 million pound budgets, you can do that, but we’re not in the position where we can go chasing games from 2-0 down.

“It was just not a good day at the office, third game in the week, real low energy we had, we didn't play well and we got punished for it.

“Let’s not beat around the bush, we were miles off it today.

"We were miles off it today, we were miles off the energy levels, the quality levels, we gave the ball away too easy, we were slow in our build up, we didn't stretch the play, we didn't turn them, we didn't win headers, we didn't win second balls, we got out-run, we got out-headed, if you need me to keep on, there was 100 things we didn't do well today.

“Cardiff were better than us, they fully deserved their win.

"For us, I'm a little bit embarrassed, I’m not saying it was an embarrassing performance, but I’m a little bit embarrassed, because that was my worst performance since I've been Luton manager since 2016.”

The Bluebirds first goal came after referee Josh Smith had waved play on when Luke Berry was fouled just outside the hosts’ box, Cardiff winning the ball back and quickly transferring play up the other end to win a corner.

From the set-piece Sean Morrison escaped the attentions of Matty Pearson to score, as Jones wasn't about to blame the officials, rather criticise his own side’s defending as they looked woefully fragile every time Cardiff had a set-piece, three of the City goals coming from deadball situations.

He added: “I’ll have a look, I’d love to blame the referee, I'd love to say it was the referee’s fault, but it absolutely wasn’t.

“We were nowhere near the levels we need to be.

"Any time they put a ball in our box they looked dangerous and that’s the embarrassing thing for me.

“Whatever we tried to do in terms of shape and personnel it was futile as any time they put a ball in our box they actually got first contact and we’re usually good at that."

Looking back at the mistakes which led to the opening two goals, Harris left with time and space to beat Simon Sluga for the second, Jones added: “People didn't do their jobs it’s pure and simple.

“The first ball is right on Sonny Bradley’s head, somehow he feels he was fouled, he falls over, and Matty Pearson loses Sean Morrison, so I can’t analyse it any more, I can't show them any more videos, we can't show them more examples, we can't work on it any more.

“So just do your jobs, if they do their jobs they don't score the first goal.

"Then we concede to a counter attack on nine minutes where they didn't do their jobs, Cardiff will say it's well worked, for us it's horrific goals, real horrific goals.

“That’s why I’m a little bit embarrassed as 4-0 doesn't flatter Cardiff today.

"It's not like they scored four goals from four chances, Sluga actually made two or three very good saves, so that could have been five or six and that's the thing I'm little bit embarrassed about.”